4 Books on Bill Gates’ Latest Favorites List That Have Shaped His Worldview

Bill Gates reads 50 books every year. And his annual book recommendation list is one of the most anticipated year-end roundups among avid readers. Although there are still more than two months left in 2018, Gates has already offered a peek at what some of his 2018 top picks might be.

The book, authored by Czech-Canadian environmental scientist Vaclav Smil, who Gates has claimed to be one of his all-time favorite authors, provides a comprehensive account of the history of energy and how major changes in energy consumption have shaped human society and energy.

“Smil is one of my favorite authors, and this is his masterpiece,” Gates wrote in a blog post in December 2017. “He lays out how our need for energy has shaped human history—from the era of donkey-powered mills to today’s quest for renewable energy.”

“It’s not the easiest book to read,” he warned, though. “But at the end, you’ll feel smarter and better informed about how energy innovation alters the course of civilizations.”

This 2018 book by Swedish statistician Hans Rosling and his daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund is just as similarly optimistic as Enlightenment Now. Gates enjoyed it so much that he pledged to give a free copy to every 2018 college graduate in the U.S.

“[It is] one of the most important books I’ve ever read―an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world,” Gates wrote in a book review.

This 2015 book by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari offers a groundbreaking narrative of how we came to be as “humans” by exploring the ways in which biology and history have defined us.

“It’s so provocative and raises so many questions about human history that I knew it would spark great conversations around the dinner table. It didn’t disappoint,” Gates wrote about the book in a blog post in 2016.